I’m going to have to take Bubba back to the vet tomorrow. I don’t think his tail is healing like it’s supposed to. The vet told us his stitches should come out in 10-14 days after the surgery, and if we couldn’t get off work to bring him back in we could easily remove the stitches at home. If I had never dealt with something like this before I wouldn’t want to remove them myself, but my old job at the hospital had me removing stitches on a regular basis with my work study program in college.
I started removing his stitches last night, and I had absolutely no problem removing the stitches from his neutering, but I started having trouble when I reached his tail. First of all, on the top end of his tail the stitches were so tight they’d grown into his skin. I’ve seen this before, and I had to be very careful not to break his skin open. I got those out, but he didn’t want to let me touch the bottom part of his tail. I finally gave him a children’s benedryl to calm him down some, then I went to work on the bottom half of the tail.
What I found isn’t good. His stitches are no where near ready to come out there. Now this is the end with his drain hole, and because of all the drainage I think his skin has stayed too moist to form a scab. The last 4 stitches are still holding together skin that hasn’t decided to grow together yet, so if I remove those half of his tail is going to be a huge gaping hole. I took out the ones on the top part of the tail that has healed, but I left the bottom 4, and I’ll be calling the vet tomorrow.
He takes his last dose of antibiotics tomorrow, so I know he’s definitely going to need more or this is going to turn into a huge infection. I’m hoping the vet says this is just from the complications he had with clotting after the surgery, and that it’ll heal after a few more days. I might even see if the vet can add a few more stitches on that end to hold together the skin that isn’t healing. I noticed the stitches seem to be very loose on that end. Maybe after the swelling went down the stitches aren’t as tight as they need to be. What I do know is I’m worried about him, and I’m definitely talking to the vet first thing in the morning.
Tags: Pets
